Tea Leaf Nation

Writing on Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter, in response to recent discussion of the mainland’s brewing conflict with the Philippines over the Huangyan Islands, user @有子如虎 recently tweeted his summary of military history this way: “I was thinking about recent history: U.S.: We strike whoever we want! England: We strike whoever the U.S. strikes! Russia: We [...]

Ah, memories. Chen Guangcheng’s daring escape from house arrest in Shandong province to U.S. protection in Beijing is by no means the first instance of a dissident crashing a foreign diplomatic outpost for protection. In fact, it’s been happening in China, and elsewhere, for over one hundred years. In 1898, two reformists pursued by the [...]

With one policy shift, China’s government could save thousands of lives. On April 18, Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun quoted a Chinese provincial official who said China was ceasing its policy of repatriating North Koreans who have escaped life in their home’s brutal regime.  As reported in Tea Leaf Nation, China’s netizens had reacted to the earlier [...]

The recent trend of North Korea bashing continues in China’s blogosphere. @张洲演义, a young film director, has brought netizens his latest masterpiece: What Tea Leaf Nation chooses to call “Kim Jung Un Re-Imagined.”  Director Zhang poured oil on the proverbial flames with his accompanying tweet: “Looking at this late at night, actually got a biological reaction.” [...]

What a way to spend 450 million dollars. The regime of North Korea’s new (and likely insecure) young leader, Kim Jong-Un, will almost certainly scramble to save face after inviting international reporters to a botched April 12 launch of the Kwangmyongsong No. 3 missile. The intended demonstration of the North’s might and Kim III’s competence [...]

Ah, memories. The bluster; the tone-deafness; the hero worship; the (sometimes) empty threats–it’s as if Chairman Mao were alive today. On March 6, North Korea’s government, or someone pretending to represent North Korea’s government, opened an ostensibly official account on Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter. As of this article, the account @今日朝鲜, or @todaykorea, has over 70,000 [...]

“Intentional murder.” That’s how one netizen, @飞天,  described the Chinese government’s forced repatriation of North Korean defectors. The issue has again risen to the fore after Chinese authorities recently conducted a mass arrest of 30 North Korean defectors and began the process of repatriating them to the harsh dictatorship. South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak promised to [...]

At Tea Leaf Nation, we spend a lot of time in China’s blogosphere wading through rumors. Sometimes, the rumor is likely to be true; other times, the reactions to the rumor are themselves worthy of a story. And then there are the rumors which are (almost certainly) just false, like the rumored death of Kim-Jong [...]

Chinese netizens are watching the “Korean drama” and, in tune with the festive season in the West, humming a self-invented theme song of “Jinge [Brother Kim] bye, Jinge bye, Jinge on the way.” Many scoff at the pictures of grieving North Koreans as “nationwide theater”, while some from the older generation reminisce about similar scenes [...]